Two Halves Equal a Whole

Ch. 10 Arlet:

Ch. 10 Arlet:

This lady was giving me a mega stare-down. I might not have had any leadership positions, but I definitely have had plenty of basic bitch stare-downs (just from the basic amount of werewolf high school drama) so I knew how to get under her skin. I raised my eyebrows, looking at her like she was crazy, and then did a kind of 'okaaayy then' eyeroll. This made her scowl deepen and I swear I could hear her teeth grinding together. I wondered what her problem was.

When the meeting ended, Kayce looked at me with raised eyebrows, "Baby, don't take this the wrong way, but why did I start feeling - for a lack of vocabulary on my part - petty vibes from you when I was talking about guard rounds?"

I started laughing - petty vibes? He was still looking at me waiting for an answer.

"Oh, sorry," I said, "There was a girl giving me the stink eye during your entire speech so I just brought out my petty side to get her back."

The corner of his mouth twitched up, "My mate's a little spitfire," he said, "What did the woman look like?"

I hesitated, "Well she was all the way in the back so she was semi-hard to make out, but she was a brunette and was fairly tall."

"Hmmm," he said, his brows creasing.

"Do you know her...?" I asked.

"Darling, I know everybody in this pack and there are a lot of brunettes... let me know if you see her again up close though," he said guiding me back to the house and up the stairs.

I wanted to face palm myself. Blood Moon was a big pack (big enough to make me wonder how he knew everybody) of course it wasn't going to be like in the books where the girl gives a vague description and then the man is all like 'Aha! I know who you are talking about! J'accuse!!'

"Where are we going?" I asked as he made a turn that I wasn't familiar with.

"My office," he said, "I've got to check them pesky emails before they bury me... then, if you're up to it, we can go see my sister and younger brother."

I didn't know he also had a brother. Apprehension started to build in me because thinking of his siblings made me think of mine and - 

"We don't have to if you don't want to," he said cutting off my thoughts.

I could feel myself start to internally panic; frozen in place, my brain wandered over to Wren. In that moment, everything came crashing back down and I felt so alone. She had always been there and now she wasn't, and I hadn't voiced it out loud, but there had been a couple of times since I had gotten here where I had looked around to say something to Wren, but she wasn't there. My breathing quickened, why wasn't she here? My wolf was cowering in the corner of my head. No, no, no, this is why I didn't go home, I knew it would be so much worse there, with me accidentally trying to talk to her from the kitchen while she was in the living room, or going to go run and her not being there like normal, or any of the other habits I picked up after 20 years of constant companionship. I was supposed to come up here and everything was supposed to be fine because as long as I was here I could pretend she was down there. 

Kayce:

I was beating myself up internally as I felt her tense up and start to panic which was making my wolf panic. She didn't look like she was all here and her breathing was starting to come in small gasps.

"Baby, baby, baby, I'm here, look at me," I crouched down in front of her.

It took a couple more tries for me to elicit a response from her, and what she said broke my heart.